My take on “The Twilight Saga” – it’s my blog post… I can write about what I want.

FAIR WARNING: I will be disabling comments on this post because I just know there are a LOT of people out there who have very definite opinions on The Twilight Saga and this is my opinion so, to those people who like to be nasty about other people’s opinions on favorite books – write your own blog.

DISCLAIMER: There are spoilers below. You have been warned!

You have no idea how hard it was to find a picture with no half-naked people in it. YEESH!

I sit here listening to the music from Breaking Dawn Parts 1 & 2 in a playlist and crying while I write this.

Why am I crying? Because I’m a girl. Do I need another reason, really?

I have been watching/listening to Breaking Dawn parts 1 & 2 in fits and starts while I wrote over the last few days and I am reminded of why I love this series of books so much. I haven’t actually sat down and read the books in so long because I read them about 100 times each way back when I discovered them so I was a bit burnt out on them and then the first movie came out and kinda killed my love for them.

Not to say that the first movie was bad (well…in my opinion it was). It was a very well-made movie for the tiny budget they were given and there were some things in it that I even liked a little better than the way it happened in the book.

But if you are a fan of the books, you know exactly what I mean when I say that the movie Edward could not hold a candle to the Edward we knew and loved from the books. I mean, here’s a guy who is super-human, super-handsome, super-perfect and we fall madly in love with him while reading the books. We can’t wait to see him up on the big screen. We have crazy fantasies and can’t hardly breathe waiting for this movie to come out and then we go sit down in the nice dark theatre, thinking this is going to be epic, waiting with bated breath to catch the first glimpse of our Edward – the best possible love interest that ever existed and we get…

Cedric Diggory.

Seriously? Am I the only one who went “Ahh…hmm?” when he walked into that cafeteria? Cause, in the theatre I was sitting in it was a little tough to tell since everyone around me was screaming at that moment.

(except of course for the guys who had actually allowed their girlfriends/fiancés/wives to drag them to the movie)

Now despite what a lot of people say, I genuinely liked Kristen Stewart’s performance in the movie. In my mind, she was the perfect Bella. And the rest of the Cullen family was a perfect fit as well. In fact, my heart was stolen by Carlisle. When he walked into the ER, that was when I went “WOW!” and pretty much every girl in the theatre screamed again so I was not alone in that. And my mother and I agree that the choice for Charlie was a million times better than the man described in the books. But hey, it’s hard not to drool over Billy Burke. Hello!

So, on to movie 2… It was done a little better and Edward’s wardrobe and hair were a thousand times better. The thing with the months going by – BEAUTIFUL! FANTASTIC! PERFECT! If there was a dry eye in the theatre at that moment, it wasn’t mine. WOW!

And the casting of everyone new was GREAT, PERFECT, AMAZING! The wolves were my daughter’s favorite part and my son tried going around without a shirt too many times for me to count.

Movie 3… I actually enjoyed the movie on this one better than the book. I always got the impression that the book always seemed a bit like they were trying to stretch the series a bit too far. Either BD wasn’t ready or Stephenie’s publisher just wanted to milk the crazy money cow “The Twilight Saga” had become – but that was just my impression of it. The movie was done very well and it didn’t seem to drag on forever with a bunch of ridiculous moments where Edward is being overprotective and annoying.

I want to take a moment here.

This is where my biggest issue will be. I have read tons of articles and argued with tons of people about this very subject. Anyone who has actually been in a truly abusive relationship will tell you that while Edward is being overprotective and a tad too controlling, he is not in fact being abusive to Bella in Eclipse.

And here’s the kicker. And too many people forget this but I DO think Stephenie covered it pretty well and people just ignored it maybe… HE IS PRACTICALLY INDESTRUCTABLE and Bella is NOT! Hello! He is thinking of the fact that she can’t walk across a room without tripping over something on the flat, uncluttered floor.

Actually I do think that most of us “TRUE” fans got it.

And we are the ones defending it to the ground. We are the ones who realize that he is NOT being “human” here. He is not being a jealous, controlling boyfriend. He is being her protector and he’s doing everything he can just to keep her alive.

Maybe the problem is this…

Too many of us have bought into this whole women’s lib thing and forgotten how nice it is to actually have a great guy to lean on when we’re stressed or exhausted or just beaten down by all of the world’s crap. We’ve forgotten how great it feels to have a guy hold our door open for us, take our hand to help us out of a car, let us walk through a doorway first, pay for our dinner and surprise us with amazing gifts – just because they want to.

And because so many women have forgotten how great these things are, too many men have stopped doing them. They make us open our own door, make excuses like they left their wallet at home and we get stuck with the check (or they expect more than they should if they actually pay for your dinner) and they treat us like crap – because they can and we keep coming back to them for more – because we don’t know that WE ARE WORTH MORE!

We are worth the doors being held! We are worth being respected! We are worth being treasured! And the quicker we women remember that and make men stand up to being gentlemen again, the faster the abuse will die out.

No, I’m not stupid enough to think it will stop. There will always be men who abuse and there will always be women who take it. But I refuse to be one of them anymore! And I wish more women would stand with me in this!

YEAH, that wasn’t JUST about twilight was it? Probably a much deeper issue there to explore more later. Watch for it. It’s a good idea for a post.

Anyway, back to “the twilight saga”

In my humble opinion, the movie series FINALLY met up with the book series in Breaking Dawn Parts 1 & 2. Were there things about them I didn’t like? Yes, of course there were. NO book OR movie is perfect. But I finally felt like I was seeing the Edward from the books and to me, that made them the best of the series.

And WAY TO GO SUMMIT for FINALLY making it work!

Perfect wedding! Perfect music! On the Bella being “sick” – WOW! I don’t know how you managed all of that but BRAVO!

Perfect stopping point, and THANK YOU for picking right back up with the story! Perfect way to “show” the gifts. Perfect handling of the crazy aging of Renesmee. Perfect idea with the battle scene at the end. WOW!

In other news:

I actually took the books off of my GoodReads account because I was tired of all the drama and nonsense that seems to dog this series’ steps wherever it goes but I have decided, in the interest of letting off a little steam and saying what I have wanted to say for YEARS, I am going to review them. So watch on my other blog (J.C.s BookShelf) for those soon!

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